In Theaters This Week

Coming of age comedies are fraught with seemingly limitless pitfalls, necessitating a well-honed screenplay and persuasive performances to assure audience allegiance. So with consistently entertaining characters and infectious humor, writer-director Maggie Carey's "The To Do List" delivers well above expectations

Even as 1993 valedictorian of her Boise high school class, mathlete Brandy Klark (Aubrey Plaza) can't escape the ridicule of many classmates for her goody-good image and lack of worldliness. Facing her first year in university as a virginal freshman, Brandy decides to re-evaluate her priorities, especially after a drunken mix-up at her very first kegger results in a mistaken make-out session with too-hot Rusty Waters (Scott Porter).

Brandy quickly tosses her college planning when she discovers her latent libido in favor of a to-do list of sexual experiences she hopes will quickly get her up to speed before the fall semester starts. Her more experienced BFFs Wendy (Sarah Steele) and Fiona (Alia Shawkat) are dubious that Brandy can go from bench-warmer status to home base in one short summer, but with the experienced guidance of her semi-skanky sister Amber (Rachel Bilson), Brandy sorts out her priorities and identifies a shortlist of candidates to help her get into the game.

She quickly checks off her first few goals with her crushed-out chemistry lab partner Cameron (Johnny Simmons), but finding out that Rusty is also working at the same public pool where she's lifeguarding for the first time over the summer throws Brandy off her stride.

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With Rusty so tantalizingly nearby almost every day and showing growing interest as Brandy sheds her uptight image as well as her one-piece swimsuit in favor of a bikini, she senses her ultimate goal may not be far off. Then Cameron totally bums her out with a squirmingly awkward revelation, forcing Brandy to consider whether there may be some collateral emotional damage associated with her sexual conquests that could derail her grand scheme.

Making a convincingly assured feature debut, TV and Web series writer-director Carey delivers a script that nails the raunchy-sweet tone required to bring off this R-rated teen-centered comedy with remarkable charm and relatability, mining a rich vein of girl-centered sexual curiosity and experimentation "loosely inspired" by personal experience.

Both funnier and kinder than other recent attempts to capture the attention of a disparate segment of female moviegoers, the film achieves a cheerfully ambivalent tone more appropriate to carefree youthfulness. And Plaza's performance, shaped both by Brandy's naiveté and her almost clinical determination to lose her virginity, sets the narrative on a sex-positive journey of discovery, creating ample opportunity for misunderstanding and humor.

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

MacIntyre says the completed project will be best in Pac-12There were bulldozers, hard hats, mud, concrete trucks, blueprints, mud, cranes, lots of noise and, uh, mud, during the last recruiting cycle when Colorado football coach Mike MacIntyre brought recruits to campus. Full Story

Most people don't play guitar like Grayson Erhard does. That's because most people can't play guitar like he does. The guitarist for Fort Collins' Aspen Hourglass often uses a difficult two-hands-on-the-fretboard technique that Eddie Van Halen first popularized but which players such as Erhard have developed beyond pop-rock vulgarity.
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